I just can't get the rifle to make sense on my engy, have barely touched it since about level 5.

Another rifle engy here. As stated by the others, the rifle is primarily a close-range weapon. I open with the #5 jump attack to close on the the enemy(s), then #3 (and the irradiate toolkit if I have it equipped), then blast myself back out of range with #4. In the rare occasion that the enemy still isn't dead, I keep up the auto fire and then net shot (#2), which usually gives my other skills enough time to cooldown before they get back in range (with the firearms traits that reduce the rifle cooldowns).

If things start getting hairy I either just start circle strafing or use a supply drop. Rifle engineers are unstoppable beasts.

“The Ghouls can find you anywhere, oh no. But not without an invitation.” -King Toad

Regarding the health regen, yes it scales well up until at least 45 which is the level I am currently. It doesn't completely negate incoming damage like at early levels but it covers a good chunk of it. (which is the perfect balance since no one wants to run around untouchable for very long) And my gear isn't great so with above average gear you will probably get better results with the regen.

Regarding the weapon selection a few weapon combos cross over some. For instance, your role is the same when wielding sword/axe, axe/axe or greatsword (melee aoe dps) but the trade offs for each are distinct.

Then you get weapons like the longbow, rifle, hammer and mace/shield. Thought the rifle and longbow are both ranged dps, they could not be more distinct. And the hammer and mace/shield serve as crowd control but approach that role very differently.

I think that I want to spend at least 5 more points in Illusions for Phantasmal Hast (Illusions recharge 20% faster), but then I'm not sure if I want to finish out Illusions, Dueling, or Domination. Illusions would give me might when I shatter illusions and also allow me to shatter myself, which sounds cool except I'm not very close to the enemy frequently. Dueling doesn't seem to add very much to a shatter mesmer at all. Domination give me more damage to inactive enemies and allows me to stun when I Daze, which is pretty good.

Gear wise, I've recently changed from all +Power (primary) +Precision (secondary) to +Power (primary) and +Toughness/+Vitality (secondary). I dropped my crit rate by 3% but added a pile of armor and about 2000 health. I can't say 100% that this isn't hurting myself... but at least for solo play I feel more survivable now. I was getting very squishy for a while there.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm nearly at level 50 and have a similar build trait-wise. I tend to go greatsword and staff most the time, and it seems like every 5 to 10 levels I start to get pretty squishy-

-actually, I'm not sure squishy is the right word. I can last a long time in battle with clever use of my clones as decoys, but I can't kill tougher mobs quick enough. Eventually I get worn down and have to run or I die. This is especially true with areas with closely spaced spawn points and a tough boss. I clear out the lesser mobs, then fight the veteran (or whatever) boss, and when I have them with about a quarter health, the other mobs have respawned and joined in the fight.

I think the type of mesmer depends on the type of content you'll be doing. Shatter is good for chewing down lots of weak mobs, whereas phantasms aren't really up for long before the enemy is dead anyway. If you're looking for persistent extra sources of damage on a single target then phantasms get better. One thing to remember with shatters is that damage isn't the only thing you can do, and I think that's a challenge for the mesmer player in any kind of PvP, thinking about how they can manipulate the enemy and make them work against themselves, with conditions like confusion, feedback, etc, but also acting well with your clones so they don't know which one is you. I do mostly PvE so I haven't trained myself in that kind of mindgame yet.

I also ponied up for level 80 rare armor and a full set of centaur runes - the run speed boost really is a godsend, especially on a mesmer which doesn't have much in the way of run speed otherwise. I'm wearing primarily knight's armor (Power/precision/toughness) with 2 pieces of power/vitality/crit damage (valykyrie I think) armor. Rare Berserker greatsword as well. I've stopped exploding as soon as people look at me the wrong way, which is a relief because I had been using substandard gear from 70-80.

I feel most effective in small-scale skirmishes, and I don't really expect that to change. We just don't have any abilities like meteor storm that allow us to do lots of AOE at range and participate safely in large (e.g. 20v20) battles. The run speed boosts let me zip around pretty effectively to protect/retake the smaller supply camps.

The centaur runes are good enough that I'm even considering switching out my focus for a pistol in my second set, (but I'd keep a focus in the backpack for dedicated running or pulling people from walls).

I actually ended up trying out this Mesmer WvW build that I found online last night: Link

It was fairly fun watching enemies kill themselves whenever we ran into a zerg. It was particularly effective in siege defense - drop Mirrored Feedback, drop Chaos Storm, and giggle while white numbers fill up the screen.

One thing that I found out is that there is a huge difference between a 'Phantasm' and a 'Clone': phantasms deal good damage, while clones dish out almost nothing. If you're trying to keep illusions active, then the "create a clone when you dodge" skill becomes problematic as it will overwrite earlier-cast phantasms with new dodge-clones. This is meaningless when I'm playing my shatter build, but really sucked when I experimented with builds that were focused on not blowing my dudes up.

I thought phantasms don't get 'overwritten' by clones, seeing as they're generally more valuable. As you say, clones are useless for damage by their attacks, more for being a false target or the shatter. Also, just to be sure you're clear on it, clones and phantasms are types of illusion, two types and not three, that's one thing where I wish the skill/trait tooltips were better worded and there was an official definitive reference manual or glossary for the basics.

I thought phantasms don't get 'overwritten' by clones, seeing as they're generally more valuable. As you say, clones are useless for damage by their attacks, more for being a false target or the shatter.

I tested this out tonight and it appears that is the way things work. If you create a new clone when you have 3 illusions out, it'll replace a clone- even if the phantasm was the first created.

I'm not sure I'd say the clones are useless though. I think the number I read was they did about 10% of your damage. So if you have 3 clones out, you're doing 130% of what you'd do alone. Or 120% damage plus what your phantasm does, if you've got 2 and a phantasm out. Not too bad a boost, plus then try to shatter just before you lose them. Also, some traits can make them more effective when they're alive or when killed.

With tougher foes, my battles usually go like this:

I send out a clone and phantasm using either the greatsword or staff skills, roll towards enemy and mind wrack. This creates a clone where I rolled and I've got the shatter on myself trait- so 4 shatters on them. Next, roll away -leaving another clone, then use mirror image to get 2 more clones. Confusion shatter - let them damage themselves. Switch weapons, use clone skills, roll again, mind wrack shatter. Of course, I'm pacing my shatters and using my main attacks as well as greatsword 3 and 5 and staff 4 and 5 as much as possible to whittle down the health.

Sometimes I'll lay a chaos field at the start with the conditions, sometimes I'll hold on to it and use it to mop up. I tend to use the sylvari skills healing seed and take root as needed for health and support as needed. I also have null field to remove conditions when I've been poisoned, and blink which breaks stuns and takes me out of the line of fire. And mirror image also breaks stuns in addition to creating two clones- it's been a lifesaver when I'm knocked down and there's a hammer risen charging up his swing.

Finally, if I ever need to get out of a situation, I roll, run, then roll again and keep on running- hoping the two clones I left behind aggro them enough so that I can get away.

BTW, this is all PvE of course. Not sure how this would go in a WvW or PvP setting.

One thing I'm doing now is considering how to control extra pulls, whereby your skills and illusions fly around and tag more enemies than you wanted, probably not so much a problem now as I cleared cursed shores last night. I'm currently running sceptre+pistol/greatsword as those give mostly good single target skills.

Two weapons I want to take a look at are swords and staff. The staff mainly as I want to try a crowd pleasing condition build, and swords seem good for messing with a player in PvP.

I thought phantasms don't get 'overwritten' by clones, seeing as they're generally more valuable. As you say, clones are useless for damage by their attacks, more for being a false target or the shatter.

I tested this out tonight and it appears that is the way things work. If you create a new clone when you have 3 illusions out, it'll replace a clone- even if the phantasm was the first created.

Okay - good to know - I must have misread, or read incorrect info.

Tscott wrote:

BTW, this is all PvE of course. Not sure how this would go in a WvW or PvP setting.

The main difference in WvW is that you won't want to be anywhere near the enemy if there is more than one or two of them, and so that Shatter effect on yourself becomes pretty useless. When I ran my shatter build in there I found that the phantasmal berserker was great to cast into zergs or onto fort walls, but aside from that it was a lot harder to be effective due to all of the AOE killing off the illusions in a hurry. (There is a trait and a signet that boost illusion health, but these didn't seem to make a big difference to their survivability in that setting.)

So I'm about to hit 80 with my Warrior (Worthless), and want start thinking about a new character. In GW1 I loved playing as a monk, since for me It was rewarding to help others in need. What I'm looking for, and asking all of you about is, what class would be useful in support role? Or maybe a different way of putting it would be, what class are you happy to fight side by side with every time?

I know it's not a useful answer but really, just about every class can be traited to function as a support class so I usually don't have that "Oh thank goodness class X is on this dungeon run with me!" until I see what skills they're packing and how they're using them. To be less technical about it, I probably see more guardians, engineers and a few necros running good support builds that really help out the group while in seemingly far fewer numbers I've seen some really good support mesmers and elementalists. Support warriors can also really help with spitting out boons and insta-rezzing in tough spots but I haven't run across too many of those personally.

So I'm about to hit 80 with my Warrior (Worthless), and want start thinking about a new character. In GW1 I loved playing as a monk, since for me It was rewarding to help others in need. What I'm looking for, and asking all of you about is, what class would be useful in support role? Or maybe a different way of putting it would be, what class are you happy to fight side by side with every time?

I quite like my level 80 warrior. I'm usually set up so that shouts heal and recharge 20% quicker (so solo/pve) and with banners that regen and recharge 20% quicker for dungeons. Both of those require 30 points in tactics. The only think I don't like is that I only have one combo field, and that's the adrenal skill for the longbow. It does work well for when I need to kite though, particularly with the regen banners.

My favorite moments as an Ele are when I'm with a Warrior or Mesmer. I love watching the warriors fight. And with the Mesmer, the amount of boons and conditions, and then the combo possibilities, are bananas

I think even rangers can be set up with a heavy support focus. There are definitely quite a bit of pet abilities that support the whole group. You can trait your spirits to move with you, allowing their group benefits to be much more effective.

You can trait to give your group increased precision, have your pet resurrect an ally, and create a healing spring on death.

Even thieves have things like making your poisons apply to your allies' weapons, and group stealth.

I also agree with Kehama, thanks to gear almost anyone can make a healing/support build if they want. You can slap healing runes on a set of armor and respec easily - the real question is what skills you want to use for a support build. Guardian is the closest analogous class to monk though, IMO.

If you're really curious take a look at a build editor. I'd suggest checking out the traits in each classes' Healing line to see what they're nudged towards. It's not going to tell you everything but it's a starting point.Then look at what kind of boons they can grant to allies.

Does anyone have a decent amount of experience with the ranger spirit abilites? From the very, very little I've played with them they seem to function a bit like banners but their boons only have a percent chance to apply. They don't attack and the chance to apply a boon is just on a per tick basis, right? I've seen some ranger spirit focus builds out there but I'm not sure I fully understand how the spirits are supposed to work. Having a 20% chance to get a buff if I stay close to a spirit doesn't seem to be that great when compared to just about every other skill in the game.

There is a 30 point talent that lets them move with you. Until that time, it is hard for me to find viability for them. Note: my ranger is only 32 and has not unlocked or tried any spirit skills so take that into account. I have the same questions you have so that is a major reason why I have stayed away.

So I'm about to hit 80 with my Warrior (Worthless), and want start thinking about a new character. In GW1 I loved playing as a monk, since for me It was rewarding to help others in need. What I'm looking for, and asking all of you about is, what class would be useful in support role? Or maybe a different way of putting it would be, what class are you happy to fight side by side with every time?

For a more direct answer my three favorite classes to bring would likely be a staff elementalist that regularly combo blasts their Healing geysers and brings glyph res (the most reliable res imo).

Staff guardian, 2nd set either greatsword for physical pulling (Great for aoe party members), or mace/shield for off-tanking. Give tremendous stacks of might to party, some healing

Shout warriors are mobile, can heal, mass remove conditions

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As for spirit rangers, I will have to take a contrary opinion. Long cooldown on spirits, aoes splashing down everywhere in dungeons killing spirits, poor range on active spirit skills, I'll pass.